Who are your favorite children's authors?
Parents of young kids: Who are your favorite authors for reading to your young kids? I have a soon-to-be 4 year old who loves books and I'm always looking for new ideas. I'll start off with a few of her favorite authors, with a good title from each (not in rank order).
Alice and Martin Provensen - Our Animal Friends on Maple Hill Farm
Julia Donaldson - Room on the Broom
Kaya Doi - Chirri and Chirra
Margaret Mahy - Dashing Dog
Anne Hunter - Possum's Harvest Moon
Paul Goble - The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses
I'll single out the Chirri and Chirra books with an explanation because they're very different from the others. They are translated from Japanese, and despite having super simple plot lines, the drawings are a lot of fun and a wonderful complement to the text.
Any of the Moomins books by Tove Jansson. Beautifully written and with thematic depth, so that it's not just the kids that will love it, they are a real pleasure to read especially if you enjoy doing voices.
Oh man yeah I devoured Moomin books as a kid. I also really enjoyed sitting in the library and reading the Moomin comic books. The comic books were physically huge to me as a kid lol!
This is shooting slightly higher in age (right on the border of kid lit and middle-grade), but if you let me, I will talk your ear off about Animorphs by K.A. Applegate.
On its face, it's a story about kids transforming into animals to fight an alien invasion. Under that, though... It's a war story. It's about what fighting a secret war does to a person, and how everyone else is affected. It's about how there are good people on the "bad" side sometimes, and how the "good guys" aren't always the saviors you want. It's about experiencing everything Earth has. It's about silly teenage shenanigans. It's got some fantastic representation, including a surprising amount of queer rep for a kids series from the 90s. It's funny, moving, scary, bleak, hopeful. I love these books so damn much.
These books are amazing and honestly still hold up now that I'm an afult (though ofc there's some nostalgia there). It's surprisingly deep for kid's stuff, written at a very easy to read level (depending on the kid but def within an average 9-10 year old's wheelhouse) but never talks down to them. Absolutely worth reading. They can be hard to get ahold of physically today but aren't hard to source digitally.
It's on my list to reread - I loved them as a kid but the nature of library availability meant that it was less stable narrative and more wacky episodic series that apparently was way more adult than I remembered... I'll swing back around to it one of these days.
My soon-to-be 5 year old is a really big fan of Mo Willems and especially the Pigeon books (e.g., Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, The Pigeon Has to Go to School).
Seconding Mo Willems. We collected a huge stack of Elephant and Piggie over the years. My son learned to read with these and I recommend them to everyone.
(@Laihiriel, seconding you as well)
If you love Mo Willems, you will probably like Arnold Lobel. He wrote some utterly wonderful stories called Frog and Toad back in the 70's.
Edit: my favorite page, Frog is eager to go outside as it is spring, and is trying to wake his friend Toad up from hibernation so they can go outside and have fun: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b3/21/4c/b3214c5fcf934f6a4c803477199a7d9d.png
I am genuinely curious after running into the Pigeon books, what is the appeal for kids? "can I drive the bus?", "no", "I will drive the bus", "no", "now I'll drive the bus", "no"... I don't quite understand what would get them so excited. Would love to understand!
I don't really know. Maybe it's their chance to tell someone else no when they make irrational demands instead of being on the receiving end?
I prefer The Pigeon Has to go to School, Don't Let the Pigeon Stay up Late, and The Pigeon Has to Take a Bath over the bus one.
Jon Klassen's hat trilogy
Our family is deeply in love with these books. The language is very simple, but they are absolutely hilarious. If your kids are starting to read themselves, give them a shot. There's something especially funny hearing kids reading about a small fish justifying stealing a large fish's hat.
Bree Paulsen's Garlic and the Vampire
Another one for early readers, but a bit more longform. It's a graphic novel, and the language is generally pretty simple. As an adult reader, you could breeze through it on a bus ride home.
It's about an anxious anthropomorphic garlic who has been tasked with dealing with a vampire who has moved in nearby. The characters are adorable, the artwork is gorgeous, and there's plenty of positive messages.
The hat trilogy is excellent, almost subversive. I loved reading these as an adult and my child loved having them read to him.
The illustrator (Klassen) has also done some other books. We liked "Sam and Dave dig a hole".
Four is a little young for my recommendation, but I loved the Redwall series by Brian Jaques. Someone else recommended Animorphs, and I'll second that. I'd also recommend The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis.
Redwall is definitely too old for four, but I have heard of parents reading it to kids as young as 7 or 8, though that depends on the kid. There are however some Redwall picture books that are utterly charming and absolutely perfect for little kids.
All the Julia Donaldson ones are amazing! Current favourite in our house (ages 5 and 3) is The Smeds and the Smoos.
Aaron Blabey writes a fun series called Pig the X - first one is Pig the Pug, then you have Pig the Winner, Pig the Tourist etc.
The Very Cranky Bear is also great and the start of a series. Can’t remember the author though!
We read Matilda and George’s Marvellous Medicine starting when my oldest was about 4. She’s been less interested in reading more of Dahls books - I think because so many of them have a male protagonist.
Both girls absolutely love The Princess in Black series by Dean and Shannon Hale. It’s a great intro to chapter books - longer but still has lots of pictures in. It’s about a princess who is secretly a monster fighting superhero. Really great for subverting the normal princess tropes!
Could I suggest "The Prince and the Witch and the Thief and the Bears" by Alistair Chisholm? The kids in my class always enjoy the book. The sequel leaves something to be desired.
Cranky Bear is by Nick Bland and is a wonderful series. He also wrote Some Dads which was quite popular with my child.
Ahh of course! We read that book every night for months, can’t believe I forgot his name. I haven’t heard of Some Dads, I’ll look out for it!
Mo Willems! He’s got several great series of children’s books that are suitable for a wider range of kids. The Pigeon books are very fun to read aloud because the Pigeon is very theatrical, and the books are written for kids to tell the Pigeon “no”. Mo Willems also deliberately drew the Pigeon in a way that kids can emulate. He’s very charming and silly, good stuff!
You also can’t go wrong with the classic “Monster At the End of This Book” starring Grover.
Edit: I was wrong on this, and my comprehension skills in the early morning are lacking.
Nobody is talking about early childhood authors here.Jon Klassen is amazing, I love almost every book I've seen by him. Similarly, Steve Antony is also enjoyable to read. Both of them use a very focused, subdued art style in their books that just fits so well with their writing. "I Want My Hat Back" is such a banger, and the twist at the end always gets kids talking. "Please, Mr Panda" is a fun way to talk about manners and the importance of using them.
I'd love to hear any other recommendations from folks!
For elementary school readers, I am a partisan of Daniel Pinkwater. His books have this dreamlike combination of wisdom and nonsense, so that you are always wondering whether they are concealing some deeper meaning or are simple meaningless silliness. This led to hilarious consequences when one of his anti-fables got put on a standardized test in New York State, confusing some students so much that they couldn't even finish the exam.
Seriously he can fuck right off with that story. I had suppressed that story because I had the privilege to have that on my test that year.
I also believe that they had to throw out that part of the exam because not enough students completed it and enough controversy was generated by it.
It's not his fault really! I have no idea what possessed the New York school administrators to take a story that was purposefully written to confuse the reader, then modify it to make it even more confusing and put it on a test which is used to evaluate school performance. Some seriously chaotic energy was possessing the bureaucrats that day.
Ok, but to be fair. I had no idea who he was before that test, so being introduce to him that way was really fucking annoying to an eighth grader.
Its New York, half of things that is forced upon the students and teachers makes no sense.
The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Doom!
I loved that book as a teenager, I should reread it and see if it holds up.
My absolute favorites as a kid was the Pendragon series by D.J. MacHale and the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. Both had great worldbuilding and was an easy read. They had a great balance of storytelling and worldbuilding that allows the creative mind of young kids to go beyond thinking what is normal and to think outside the box.
Say what you want about R.L. Stine but Goosebumps really helped inspire a love for reading in 4th grade maxgoof. I devoured those books, begging my mom to take me to Target to check for the newest titles. Some of those stories were so memorable and creepy, like A Night in Terror Tower and Welcome to Camp Nightmare.
Anything that gets children reading is good. Librarians are great at finding those books for reluctant readers. I think some adults can be a bit sniffy about books, thinking a book has to be worthy or educational or something. But reading should be fun.
In the UK we have the Little Gems series. These books are small, they're short, they use a clear font with good contrast. They're great to get people reading.
What a fun thread! Going to check out the ones you recommended. Here are some of our favorites. My son is 4 years old, so the recommendations are targeted around that age.
Jon Klassen
As others have said, Jon Klassen is a true gem (often in concert with Mac Barnett). I'll pretty much buy anything of his sight unseen.
Sophie Blackall
Also great. Heartwarming stories and great illustrations.
Virginia Lee Burton
Brendan Wenzel
Other favorite or fun books
Joseph Kuefler isn't quite as reliable as/on par with the above but my son has enjoyed the Digger series:
Roald Dahl - any
Dahl has such a deep bench in terms of children's books. The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, the Twits, Boy... They are all amazing. It's often one of my first books for kiddos when they get to ages 5-7. Fantastic stories!
Richard Scarry - Cars and Trucks and Things that Go!
CTTG is my go to for ages 1-4. They have amazing pictures, an easy to understand story, and you have the added benefit for searching for Gold Bug on each page.
Richard Scarry is amazing! My four year old loves his books. I thought we must be some of the only people who read them since they are so old (and sometimes harder to find). Glad to see someone else enjoys them too!
Speaking of older books, my daughter also loves Roger Hargreaves' Mr. Men and Little Miss books. I'm sure there is some well worn criticism of gender roles in these books, but when we see anything blatant it just gives us something to talk about (but mostly the books are just highly cartoonized silliness). We picked up the semi-full set of both Mr. Men and Little Miss and have read each book many, many times.
These look fun! Seems they're trying to re-vamp/re-release them as a tool to help kids understand emotions? Unclear to me if different from the originals.
Another great older book is George Shrinks.
Another incontrovertible Redwall fan here! Though the series is geared more towards older elementary/primary school-aged children, there are, in fact, several Dibbun-friendly Redwall picture books. The first two, The Great Redwall Feast and A Redwall Winter's Tale are wonderfully charming stories in their own right, but The Redwall Cookbook is both a wonderful picture book AND an actual cookbook, which is well worth exploring with your own Dibbuns. Just don't invite any hares over if you actually want to enjoy any of it. I highly recommend all three!
Dianna Wynne Jones is one my favorites. The Howl series and the Chronicles of Chrestomanci are a whole lot of fun. Reading her books feels a lot like watching a Ghibli movie.
Another Chronicles of Chrestomanci mention!
I love how a theme throughout many of her books is "actually your problems were pretty obvious to everyone and they've been rooting for you the whole time but were too polite to step in and trusted you would get it right on your own anyway."
It's something I really haven't seen anywhere else but crops up in a couple of her novels, and now that I think of it might resonate well with kids' lives. Kind of like how Alice in Wonderland is (I've heard it suggested) such an enduringly popular kids' book because being forced to abide by a bunch of silly rules and being called rude when you get frustrated by it is an enduringly common experience for kids.
Also now that I think of it they've got a much greater diversity of masculine archetypes than you find in most media. Howl, Chrestomanci, Cat... I wish we saw that much character diversity more broadly. Good for both boys' self-perception and girls' standards.
One author I absolutely love but i never hear anyone else mention is Bill Peet. The guy was an animator at Disney way back in the day, and did a whole bunch of his own kids books. Visually they're incredible and the stories are interesting and clever. A few of my favorites are Huge Harold, Randy's Dandy Lions, and Chester the Worldly Pig.
Not sure if this is a bit above their reading level, but here are the ones that come to mind for me - if this is a bit advanced for them to tackle, file it away for a couple years.
Redwall is absolutely fantastic, can't recommend it enough. Like a lot of other beloved kids books, it can be a bit mature for really little kids, but definitely worth a try even if the snake gave me nightmares o_o
Terry Pratchett's Diskworld is in a similar vein, books that seem like they'd suck your kid in while imparting good character before they know what hit 'em. Lot's of different series with in it, I'm particularly partial to the Night Watch books up until 'Thud!', but if I ever have a daughter I'm going to make sure she's got the Tiffany Aching series on hand.
Artemis Fowl was absolutely beloved when I was a kid, as well as some of Eoin Colfer's other bits and bobs.
Obert Skye's Leven Thumps series was another favorite, as well as a couple other things from him - Leven Thumps is still among the more creative settings I've seen, and I've still got the set of his Pillage trilogy as well
Howl's Moving Castle and its sequels are fantastic, but The Chronicles of Chrestomanci Volume 1 was actually more engaging to me when I was younger.
uhhhh man I could go on for a while but I'm going to leave off with the suggestion of some manga (yeah yeah cringe cringe) - Witch Hat Atelier and The Girl From The Other Side are two series I'm working my way through right now of great quality that seem like they might be of interest to a young girl, and might be a bit more digestible for young kids than the huge blocks of text that come with full young adult novels.
Good luck with the parenthood and all!
I never see people talk about Bruce Coville, but he was absolutely my favorite author as a child. He did a lot of kid friendly science fiction and fantasy that I loved.
Also put me down as another Brian Jacques/ Redwall fan.
I'll have to check out Chirri and Chirra. Looking for a breath of fresh air!
My almost-three year old is in that phase right now where he wants the same three books read to him every night. Currently it's Go Dog Go, Hop On Pop, and Goodnight Moon.
Sometimes we will switch one out for The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but it's mostly been those three.
As for authors, aside from Seuss, our favorite is Margaret Wise Brown. Not just for Goodnight Moon, but also for Big Red Barn and My World. My son loves these, and one of them is always the last book of the night since they're so calming to him.
Karma Wilson has also been a favorite, specifically for Bear Snores On. My son has loved that book for over a year now and is still not tired of it. He loves reading it in the mornings.
Oldschool Runescape quests make weirdly good bed time stories.
The new Great Khourend stuff has some interesting world building, I'm interested to see where they go with it.
But also a lot of the older quests like Underground Pass have pretty nice background storytelling too.
The sillier ones make good stories for small children. Cook's assistant, goblin diplomacy, one small favor, the penguin quests, etc.
I dont know if cooks assistant is that great a kids story...
One time there was a chef who needed to bake a cake. So I got him and egg and some flour and some milk, and the day was saved. The end.
Maybe if you include recipie for disaster.
One Small Favor is prime material for sure.
Not a parent, but my nieces loved Amelia Bedelia.
I wish Ursula Vernon had been writing when I was a kid. I've read several of her books aimed at younger audiences (as well as several aimed at older audiences) and they are fun, funny, daring, thoughtful, worldbuildy, and basically all those good things you want in a proper adventure story. I would have absolutely spent all my allowance money on her books.
That being said, they may be for an older age range than what you're looking for (closer to 8-12 for the beloved Dragonbreath and Hamster Princess series, neither of which I have personally read, but I've heard good things about them).
When I was a kid I loved Michael Morpurgo books, I still have them right now even. My favourite was Cool which was a short one about a boy in a coma who can still hear what's going on around him. It's a bit of a coming of age story about appreciating your family. Dear Olly and Toro! Toro! were favourites as well.
Once I was a bit older I loved the Rick Riordan Percy Jackson books, they're a great intro to mythology. Those books plus the Roman Mysteries by Caroline Lawrence probably explains my love of history to this day.
A long time ago I put together a tiny website to help me keep track of some book awards in the UK. I did this because the winning books were usually excellent, and also it was a way for me to find the short-list books which were often excellent too.
Finding a great author or illustrator, and then looking at their other work, can lead to some lovely discoveries.
https://danbc.neocities.org/
The CILIP Kate Greenaway award is probably most relevant. Sadly, CILIP website keeps changing urls and I can't be bothered to keep up with their changes, so outlinks to that site will probably be broken.
I bought and enjoyed these books - This is not my hat; Black dog; Harry and Hopper (quite sad though); Harris Finds His Feet; Wolves; Pirate Diary (bit gruesome); Gorilla.
I bought but did not enjoy FArTHER. It has a decorative font in low contrast colours, and when I'm trying to read to child in bed in low light levels I needed better typography. This is highly personal! Other people like the book.
Some of the books are no longer in print, and that's a shame because they look great and a I don't think there are modern versions to replace them.
Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus trilogy was my favorite as a child (age 11ish?). I re-read it as an adult not long ago, and it honestly holds up. It’s a fantasy and magic series set in an alternate history dystopian London mixed with awesome ancient/mythological themes.
The hierarchy of the society is based on magic users summoning entities of varying power from other planes, and the main character is a young apprentice who manages to summon a mid-level djinn far beyond the capabilities of even many adults. The banter between characters is fantastic for a children’s book, and the plot is engrossing through the whole trilogy. I highly recommend it for any kids who love to read.
Not a parent, but for anyone with kids starting on chaptered books, I recommend Ron Roy, author of the A-Z Mysteries. I loved those books as a kid, and I bought new books as they released even after I outgrew them until he finally released the Z book (Zombie Zone). I remember I'd reread them in like half an hour as an older kid. I still to this day idly think about how Ruth Rose always wears one color, from her shoes to her headband.
He's since created a spin-off series with the characters, and he writes some other mystery series too. Namely the Capital Mysteries and the Calendar Mysteries. I read a few of the Capital Mysteries and they're also pretty fun, though a bit more fantastic than the A-Z Mysteries. (The first book is literally about cloning the president, so yeah, that gives you an idea.)
So many great titles are already mentioned but there are a couple I don’t see that I’ll put forward.
Andrea Beaty's series including Iggy Peck, Architect; Ada Twist, Scientist; and Rosie Revere, Engineer are quite good. There are a few more that were published after we went through them as well.
The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak was a huge favourite in our house. It’s basically just an excuse to be over the top ridiculous in how you read it and is great fun.